Nadezhda Savchenko escorted to court, May 6

MOSCOW, May 6. /TASS/. Doctors have allowed former Ukrainian pilot Nadezhda Savchenko to continue participating in Moscow Basmanny Court session on extending the term of her arrest, Judge Natalya Mushnikov said on Wednesday.

Doctors said that Savchenko’s heartbeat and blood pressure are normal. Earlier today, an ambulance was called to Savchenko during the hearings of her case after she said she was feeling unwell and was having chest pain.

Before the court session started, Savchenko’s defense lawyers filed a request to postpone hearings on extending the former pilot’s arrest terms. Lawyers said they did not have time to prepare for the hearings properly as they learned about them only yesterday.

"In my prison cell, I found out that I will have two court sessions today. That’s why I did not have time to prepare," Savchenko said. However, the court refused to postpone the session.

Savchenko is accused of complicity in the killing of two Russian journalists, Igor Kornelyuk and Anton Voloshin, last summer and illegally crossing the Russian border. She was elected as a Verkhovna Rada deputy and later became Ukraine’s delegate to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE).

Nadezhda Savchenko applied for permission to discharge from the army after she had been elected deputy of Ukrainian parliament during the October 26 parliamentary elections in Ukraine.